Asst. GM Thad Levine: Rangers ‘ready to strike’ if right deal comes along

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WHO THE RANGERS HAVE LOST, AND WHO COULD REPLACE THEM: This off-season hasn't gone according to plan for the Rangers. The club has already seen seven players from its 2012 roster head elsewhere, but the list of newcomers is much shorter. Here's a look at the players the Rangers have lost this winter, and a look at who might be able to replace them in 2013.

News that Nick Swisher had signed with the Cleveland Indians
on Sunday continued a familiar storyline this off-season for the Rangers –
another high-priced free agent going somewhere other than Texas.

And while seeing yet another big name come off the market
will cause fans to fret, Rangers assistant GM Thad Levine hinted this week that
the club may not have been as involved in certain free agents as reports
indicated.

“We’re still looking at the free agent market to see if
there are fits for us,” Levine said during an appearance on Sirius XM’s Front
Office show. “But we really went into the off-season with a very short list of
free agents that we felt really could impact us in a significantly positive
way. And without signing those guys, we were pretty content to turn it over to
our internal group.”

The Rangers have already lost a slew of their own free
agents – the most notable being Josh Hamilton and Mike Napoli – while missing
out on the likes of Zack Greinke and Torii Hunter.

But the club still has more than four months to tweak the
roster before the regular season gets underway in April, and Levine says the
club is ready to pounce if the right deal comes their way

“We’re still prospecting and seeing what the asks are for
each free agent and all the guys that are still available on the trade market,”
Levine said. “We’re very abreast of that and really ready to strike in the
event of a deal that’s ready to pursue.”

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